


Just Pretend

by casey_sms (shinygreenwords), shinygreenwords



Category: American Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, The Social Network RPF
Genre: Academy Awards, Angst, Angst and Humor, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Self-Esteem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-28
Updated: 2011-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/casey_sms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/shinygreenwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse feels out of place at the Oscars. It’s a massive understatement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote half of this in a notebook on the train on the way home and then wrote it out to [](http://slasher48.livejournal.com/profile)[**slasher48**](http://slasher48.livejournal.com/) in chat and then cleaned up because I maybe felt like this all day. I may have a compulsive need to write happy endings because writing it makes me feel better. Also, no girlfriends.

Jesse doesn’t know how people do this. Going up to people, introducing themselves and being friends – just like that. It’s like zero to a hundred in five seconds or something ridiculously fast. He is totally not suited to be an actor. Meeting people is terrifying. In Hollywood, everyone acts like they know everyone. Or someone who’s allegedly been boosted to the A-list. He remembers someone saying the A stands for ‘Assholes’. Everyone has an ‘in’ (everyone also has an iconic film they are known for, some sort of work like ‘oh yeah and I did this’ which is meant to be really significant and Jesse always wonders if he should say his supposed breakthrough work or whether he should say his upcoming projects to sound like he’s busy or the one where he’s been directed by David Fincher – just a casual name drop no big deal). Jesse wonders if they, the people that aren’t him, really know everyone or if they are just…acting. He’s not half the actor he should be then. How does everyone know everyone? Sure, everyone knows Tom Cruise but that’s because he’s kind of weird. Or so he’s heard. Here, in the midst of people wearing really expensive clothes, decked out with bling that probably costs more than he earns in a year, he feels like a fake.

His panic attacks have gotten better. That is, he still gets them but they’re under control. These days he only feels like he wants to cry and while that sounds kind of lame, at least most of the time he doesn’t actually cry (though his agent tells him it’s okay to cry if he wins Best Actor because people like it and it adds to his ‘sensitive’ image). It’s probably the valium more than his incredible willpower but he’ll take what he can get. It doesn’t feel like the room is dimming and he can’t breathe. He’s thankful for that because fainting would be really embarrassing. Which would be more embarrassing than crying. And much more embarrassing than walking in a room feeling like the only F-lister, F for Fake. (He’s been told that he’s at least a B-list now, one of the poor bastards who aren’t quite A-list, but he thinks they probably have it wrong and any moment they’re going to call him up and rescind his invitation. He feels like people can tell that he’s not the same as everyone else and he’s _only_ an actor. Which has some delicious irony in that. His therapist tells him that he needs to work on the negative self-talking. Jesse agrees. But that’s just sort of how he is. If he accepts it and doesn’t hate himself, if he’s out here instead of cowering between his bed sheets or having a breakdown in the bathroom, he’d say he’s good for now.)

It’s terrifying how many people ‘know’ him now. People, people who are actually famous, they will tell him they liked ‘Zombieland’ and that he was really funny and he’ll say thanks. Even though it’s not like he wrote the script and he was really just following what they told him to do (but if they are interested he’s written some stuff and they always smile and tell him he’s so talented before handing out their contacts with an ease he thinks he’ll never be able to manage). If they say they watched ‘Adventureland’, the first thing he can think of is _oh really? And then, shit, they’ve seen me half-naked._ And if they go on to say they’ve been a fan of his since ‘The Squid and the Whale’, he just wants to crawl under a rock somewhere and die. Of course there are no rocks but he’d take a prop any day. It’s not because he doesn’t think he wasn’t good because he thinks with just about everything he does and his therapist tells him he shouldn’t let it stop him from doing things. (He remembers an awkward conversation with his therapist about his O-face in ‘The Squid and the Whale’. Like, should he use a real one or is that weird? Is it pornography if he uses his real one? He wondered if he should make one up but he has no idea how you even do that. Like can you have more than one? His orgasms are kind of lame thanks to Zoloft. So he asked his therapist what to do. Then he backtracked and thought about whether he should have asked and that spiraled into more negative self-talk. Oops.)

By the time you get to something like The Academy Awards, Jesse thinks that you should know what you’re doing. At least you would hope so. But he really doesn’t and every time he wants to ask like if anyone else does, he doesn’t because what if that’s breaking some unspoken rule? Sometimes he thinks about asking Andrew because Andrew is nice and at least he wouldn’t laugh at him. He is a little jealous because of all of the neuroses Andrew supposedly has, he doesn’t think Andrew has these problems. Not that Jesse is belittling anyone else’s plight because he knows that it’s insensitive and he hates it when people dismiss his problems. It’s just that…he can’t see Andrew looking in the mirror and hating his face, his body and his everything. He can’t see Andrew talking about how sometimes when he sees himself, he absolutely loathes it and cringes and wants everyone to burn all the copies of the movie.

Jesse really isn’t made to be an actor. Except its sort of perfect for him because he feels too much and he’s not comfortable in his own skin. For some reason, a lot of people see it as a really meaningful thing. Jesse just likes being able to not be himself for a little while. Getting a script is comforting because you know what's going to happen next even if you are getting attacked by zombies. It's all part of a greater plan, you know you're not going to die. As an actor, he gets to wear shoes, or in his case flip-flops, he’d never buy. When he was Mark, he calls Erica a bitch on the internet and he knows he’d never be that person. But it’s nice not to be the nice guy, to be the outspoken one for a change. For ‘Zombieland’, he gets to be the hero of the story and that’s pretty damn cool. He’s cool. It’s something he wouldn’t associate with himself.

So people are coming up to him and saying that they “expect great things” from him like it’s a really good thing. Really? Is that meant to be encouraging? He says, “Thanks for the pressure. I’ll only feel like twice the disappointment now.” It kind of slips out. Luckily the person in question, probably starring in a film Jesse has never watched, thinks it’s the most hilarious thing he’s heard since his last glass of champagne. Jesse smiles and watches the person schmooze with the next Oscar nominee (he has them all down in a list somewhere so he won’t forget) and wonders whether he should be doing that too.

A couple of people tell him they are “sorry” he didn’t win. If he says, “thanks” is that saying he expected to win? He didn’t expect to win so he’s not disappointed. It’s like back to being a kid again and getting Participation Awards. The consolation prize for the Academy Awards is better though. Not that he really needed consoling because again, he didn’t go into it thinking he’d be nominated. (And Colin Firth won. Jesse thinks he really deserves it so it’s not anything to be sorry for.) He feels like such a kid. He knows he’s not a big guy and next to Andrew, Armie and Josh, he’s tiny. He wanted to wear shoes with bigger heels but then he was worried it’d be more obvious. There is no way you can make up that much height anyway. So when people wave at him, he tries very hard not to look over his shoulder to check if they are talking to someone behind him.

This is why he likes having a date. That way he’s not alone. That and he can hang onto them legitimately. Speaking of which, he can’t believe his mom just left him there to go talk to Justin’s mom and someone who looks very much like George Clooney. She kissed him on his forehead and told him to have fun and mingle after he’s introduced her to the table. She really wanted to talk to George Clooney and Jesse would rather not. So off she went. He really hopes she won’t mention anything about him when he’s a kid. His mom is really nice and he loves her dearly but what she thinks is cute is downright mortifying. She promised though.

Everyone is smiling. That sort of mean they are happy, right? Are there really that many movies? (And who has time to watch them all?) He maintains what he said about Oscars being like Bar Mitzvahs. Still, so much for the room full of insecure actors because no matter what everyone says or confesses, he still feels like he’s the only one fumbling. Yeah, he probably needs more therapy but he already has it once a week and he had an extra session ahead of this so he won’t deny it.

 _“Trust yourself, Jesse. You can do it, heck, you’ve already done it. This is a cause for celebration and I won’t have you think otherwise. I want you to treat your own work with respect. Try and enjoy the Oscars. You know you can act and now you’re being recognized for what you’ve done. You should be proud of yourself.” Then Dr Goldsmith gives him a smile. “If you feel you can’t, count to ten and take some deep breaths. Just pretend. Think of it as your greatest performance.”_

Of course, then Jesse made therapy into a discussion about acting and faking, the symbiotic but sometimes diametric relationship between studio time and real life and the philosophical differences inherent in these culturally constructed concepts. Okay he was bullshitting but his therapist is nice and he smiled like Jesse knew what he was talking about. Then he winks at Jesse and tells him that he’s doing fine, he’s going to be fine and just keep doing what he’s doing.

Jesse is seriously considering a drink (or a bottle to knock himself out) even though he should probably not be drinking with the amount of meds he’s on today. He goes to the bathroom. It’s blessedly empty. He closes the cubicle door behind him and thinks about not crying as he pisses. Even pissing is hard because he’s so on edge (you feel like pissing all the time but when you actually do it, it feels too slow). Maybe he can just stay in the bathroom and pretend he has irritable bowel syndrome? He sort of does as a side effect of his particular cocktail of meds so it’s not exactly lying. Except it’s more than a bit cowardly and he should be better than that now.

Jesse forces himself to go out of the cubicle. He washes his hands and looks at himself in the mirror. Is his nose a little red? Is it obvious that he’s trying not to cry? He clenches his jaw, feeling his eyes burn. He can feel the snot coming out and yay isn’t that glamorous? He takes his hankie out of his pocket and blows into it. Maybe he could pretend he has a cold. It’s so stupid because he just feel like everything is too much. The lights, the cameras and the people. It’s not even a bad thing. It’s a happy event and it should be exciting but he feels like a mess. He feels like everyone is staring at him and they are saying, who are you and why did you get invited? It’s all in his head and he knows that but it doesn’t make it stop. He wants to go home. He’s seriously contemplating giving in to crying, just a bit, when someone not even vaguely familiar looking walks in the bathroom. Jesse startles and covers it up by washing his hands vigorously and giving what he hopes is a nice smile. The mirror tells him it looks a bit forced and his eyes prickle again.

There’s nowhere to go. He sort of has to go out because he’s washed his hands and that’s what you do after you’ve gone, right? So if he’s still there washing his hands and the person comes out, they’re probably going to think he has OCD. Which he has and he’s probably mentioned that in an interview so then they might know and it’d be really awkward anyway. It’s always weird when someone asks, “Are you okay?” like they really care because then he will actually cry. Then they’ll say “It’s okay” even if they have no idea what he’s crying about and he’s not always sure either but hearing someone say it always makes him want to cry even more. They can’t know it’s okay and it isn’t any more okay than it was the second before they said it but hearing it always makes him want to be and he knows he’s not and- shit. He has to stop thinking about it. He blows his nose, takes a deep breath and heads back into the party.

A journalist pops up in front of him like a freaky jack-in-the-box and gushes about how he’s a really good actor. Jesse tells him thanks and stammers something along the lines of how there are many great actors here tonight and maybe he’ll be a great actor one day. The journalist laughs. Jesse is glad he’s funny even though it wasn’t supposed to be and he really hopes he doesn’t end up on the Internet sounding like a douchebag. It’s written in ink and all. Not that he’d Google himself but his agent monitors the media for stuff about him. Jesse is a bit better now, he no longer thinks he’s shit. He just isn’t as good as he wants to be.

 _“You expect an awful lot from yourself, Jesse.”_

 _“Take baby steps.”_

 _“Remember what I said about positive self-talk? You can do it. You are enough. You deserve to be happy.”_

Jesse is pretty sure he’s the only one having one-sided conversations with his therapist in his head during the Oscar’s. Speaking of which, they are probably going to have to go to the after party soon. He’s seriously considering doing a runner. His mother will forgive him. Everyone would be better off-

Out of nowhere, Andrew appears beside him. Too close but not close enough. “There you are, Jess.” The smile Andrew has cannot be anything but genuine.

Jesse’s heart is still pounding, he can taste the aftermath of crying in his mouth and his eyes feel gritty. He also has a headache from fighting against himself.

Andrew says, “I’ve missed you.”

It’s impossible. They had dinner together on the same table like an hour ago. Still, when Andrew says it, it sounds true. “Sorry, were you-” looking for me? It’s a bit presumptuous so Jesse corrects himself. “About to go to the after party?” Jesse remembers having picked the Governor’s Ball and he knows Andrew’s going to the Vanity Fair one.

“Yeah,” Andrew says, still grinning at him.

Jesse’s heart does a weird thump because he wants to ask Andrew to go with him but it’s not really fair because Andrew is going to be a star and he’s going to be great and he doesn’t need a ~~burden~~ person like Jesse. (I tried, Dr Goldsmith.)

“I changed my mind. I think I’m going to go to the Governor’s Ball. It’s smaller, cozy. Wanna go together?” Andrew sounds hopeful like Jesse would say no that that. As if he hadn’t just pulled all of Jesse’s hopes out of the secret part of his head that he only shares with his therapist and his cats.

Inside he’s thinking “yes, yes, yes, tell him you idiot” but the words stick in his throat and he maybe feels teary again. God, no, please don’t do this to me.

“Are you okay?”

Jesse lets out one sniff. He tries to cough for his fabricated cold but it sounds more like he’s choking and Andrew is going to say it again and he’s going to fall apart. “I just need a minute,” he says quickly before running back to the bathroom.

It’s there he realizes Andrew is going to think he turned him down. He really can’t do anything right. He really can’t go out of the toilet now. Or ever again.

Andrew walks in, “Hey, Jess-”

“I’m fine,” Jesse says a little abruptly because he really can’t hear Andrew say it. It’s kind of rude so he apologizes for that and since he’s worried he’s done something else wrong, he apologizes for everything while he’s at it. He’s not quite looking at Andrew. He hopes he isn’t bright red. Where is that rock when you need it?

Andrew says, “Jesse,” and he sounds sad.

And Jesse thinks, oh here it comes, this is going to be an awkward break up even if they aren’t together. His mind is already catastrophizing about Andrew not wanting to be friends.

“I’m going to give you a hug now, ok?”

Jesse’s head snaps up and um it sounds okay, good even, so he tries to smile while chewing on the side of his cheek.

Andrew folds his arms around him and he’s warm and he smells good and it feels safe. Jesse doesn’t know where to put his hands so he puts them cautiously on Andrew’s waist slash back area. Andrew holds him tighter and instead of finding it hard to breathe, it’s easier. For a moment, Jesse lets himself stop worrying about anyone that might walk in, the after party, all the people and all the eyes that might or might not be on him. He stops thinking about things like expectations, failure and disappointment. Andrew is rubbing slow circles on his back and it actually feels soothing. Jesse takes a few deep breaths and the fear subsides slightly. It’s still there but it can’t get to him.

“I’m here for you.”

“We are not on the set,” Jesse says into Andrew’s chest, embarrassed when he thinks about the line before that. Andrew doesn’t seem to be letting go anytime soon.

“But we’re in a bathroom! Before you say it’s the wrong scene, it’s a familiar setting!” Andrew says with a laugh and Jesse knows he’s not laughing at him so he’s laughing with him too. He can feel the vibrations coming from Andrew. Andrew who makes laughing sexy.

That’s when Colin Firth walks in.

“Excuse me gentlemen,” he says with a nod and goes off to a cubicle like it’s no big deal for two costars to have a bromantic hug in the loo.

Jesse giggles a little.

“Alright?” Andrew asks.

“Yeah,” Jesse says wishing he was more articulate. He’s surprised he actually is. He feels okay. It’s okay. He can do this easy peasy. His brain-voice is still tinged with sarcasm but hey, baby steps right? “Thank you,” he says to Andrew with gratitude and a little awe.

“You’re welcome.” Andrew smiles at him as if he didn’t just single-handedly pull Jesse away from the edge of a nervous breakdown. Without letting go of Jesse, he slides a hand around his waist. “Ready?”

Jesse draws his chin up and posture fencing-straight. Deep breath. Count to ten. Nerves reclaim his voice so he nods.

When they step out together, Jesse thinks, _I can do it, I am enough, I deserve to be happy._

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly relevant to interests (not in a creepy/disrespectful way but I find it really encouraging that Jesse is really open about his issues), some of this stuff is taken from interviews with Jesse: [Jesse on Oscars being like Bar Mitzvahs and not belonging](http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1617992.php/Jesse-Eisenberg-The-Oscars-are-like-Bar-Mitzvahs), [Jesse on being comforted by getting a script and being uncomfortable with himself](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/05/17/100517ta_talk_widdicombe), [Jesse being told by his therapist to treat his work with respect](http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/jesse-eisenberg-forced-to-watch-films-by-therapist_1198443) and [Jesse on his OCD](http://www.dailyactor.com/2009/09/jesse-eisenberg-on-zombieland-ocd-not-having-natural-talent/). That really is his therapist's name (he said it in an interview I think but you can find it [here](http://thequietworld.tumblr.com/post/2801998734/i-have-a-lot-of-insecurity-about-performing-so)) and he really does go to therapy once a week. It's probably no surprise but yes, I've been too ;)


End file.
